On Ridiculousness
August 1, 2013 § 3 Comments
Reading The New Yorker recently, I came across perhaps the most ridiculously ostentatious language in the history of the modern world. Speaking of a retrospective of the work of the artist Ken Price, the magazine writes:
Price’s manipulation of cup forms, variously geometric and biomorphic, amounted to a surprise attack on the history and aesthetics of modern art, spankingly refreshed and made the artist’s own. His later mode of globular masses, with sanded, speckled patinas of paint is sui generis. It exalts color to practically metaphysical intensities.
Oy vey!
The Historian’s Job
July 31, 2013 § 2 Comments
Three times in the past three days I’ve been reminded of what it is that we historians do. And let me be clear, by “historian,” I mean academically-trained holders of advanced degrees who study the past. Yeah, call me pretentious or whatever. I don’t care. The first reminder I got was the now notorious interview of Reza Aslan by FoxNews concerning his new book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. In the interview, Aslan had to continuously remind the FoxNews host that he was a trained historian, not just some Muslim dude writing about the founder of Christianity. Jesus Christ isn’t usually a topic I find interesting, but after hearing the NPR interview wherein Aslan actually got to discuss the book, I almost want to read it. Almost.
The second reminder of what it is that an historian does came yesterday. Against my better judgement, I got involved in a Twitter discussion with a conspiracy theorist. I should’ve tuned out when he told me that Pierre Elliott Trudeau, whom many (including me) consider Canada’s greatest Prime Minister, was a communist. Trudeau, you see, made Canada communist. But, wait, there’s more! The communist path was paved for Trudeau by his predecessor, Lester B. Pearson, who was PM from 1963-8. Pearson, this guy claimed, had been named by a Soviet spy before US Congress as having passed on secrets to the Soviets during the Second World War. I have, believe it or not, seen this claim before, I have a vague recollection of having read something of it in connection to the Gouzenko Affair. The author of whatever this piece was addressed the Pearson claim in a footnote and gave his sources. As an historian does. My interlocutor, however, did not consider this enough. He dismissed this academic article as a MSM source (mainstream media) and biased, blah blah blah. I found myself thinking of Aslan repeating ever-so-patiently noting what it is that makes him qualified to speak on the subject of Jesus Christ. I thought, well, let’s see, I’ve read somewhere around 5,000 books and articles over the course of my career. Maybe more, maybe a little less. I am trained to critically assess an argument, its logic and its evidence. As are all the rest of us academic, professional historians. My interlocutor had offered up a Google search as his “proof” that Pearson and Trudeau were dirty commies. But he dismissed my evidence as “nothing.” Ah, wonderful, anti-intellectualiam. Carry on then, good sir, and good luck with your alternate reality.
The third time I was reminded of the historians’ path came today when reading The Times Literary Supplement. I allowed my subscription to lapse last fall. I regret that. I just renewed, and the first new issue came yesterday (note geek excitement here). In it comes a review of Brian Levack’s new book, The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Modern World, by Peter Marshall. I thought several things of this book and its review. The first was it appears to have been a colossal miss in terms of Public History. Levack is bedeviled (pun intended) by the fact that it is well nigh impossible to rationally explain possessions. And yet, people continued to believe they happened. I’m more interested in that cognitive dissonance, I must say. Anyway. Towards the end of the review, Marshall opines that “The folie de grandeur of historians is that we are conditioned to believe we can explain anything.” Huh. Not sure I agree with that. Certainly, the rational, positivist bent of our training is given over to such pursuits. And we tend to take on rational topics, things we can explain. Certainly, anything I’ve tackled in a research project from undergrad to now fits into this category. But there are some things that are harder to explain. Like, for example, the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. Or a belief (or unbelief) in God. Or, possessions, demons, and exorcisms. Here, the historian is left with this cognitive dissonance, of attempting to conduct a rational discussion (and argument) about something that may not actually be rational. Herein lies my interest in exactly that dissonance. What is it that makes people persist in their beliefs? Even in the face of all rational evidence to the contrary (as in the case of, say, possessions)? The very fact that the subject of discussion is not explainable is exactly what makes it so interesting. So, in a sense, then, Marshall is incorrect, historians cannot explain anything. Nor should we wish to.
National Review on Brown v. Board of Education and Desegregation
July 19, 2013 § 2 Comments
The National Review is one of the United States’ longest-standing conservative voices. It is also usually a reasoned, steady voice. But, well, as I read a bizarre rant about George Zimmerman in its pages full of thinly veiled racism, I find myself recalling National Review’s response to Brown v. Board of Education and government-mandated desegregation in the South in the late 1950s.
Writing in 1957 (the 24 August edition, to be exact), the editors of National Review had this to say:
The central question that emerges — and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by merely consulting a catalogue of the rights of American citizens, born Equal — is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas where it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes [italics in original] — the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race.
Yup. And for an added bonus, here is James J. Kilpatrick, who was then the editor of the Richmond News-Leader in Virginia. He was of the opinion that Brown and forced desegregation would “risk, twenty or thirty years hence, a widespread racial amalgamation and debasement of the society [of the South] as a whole.”
Why Friedrich Hayek was NOT a Conservative
July 18, 2013 § 3 Comments
I found this interesting little gem yesterday from Friedrich Hayek who, in by 1960, found himself somewhat alarmed that his The Road to Serfdom had become such a bible for right-wing laissez-faire capitalists and their supporters. Hayek subtitled the Postscript to his book, The Constitution of Liberty, “Why I’m Not a Conservative,” he writes that, amongst other things, conservatism (at least in 1960) lacked coherency in terms of countering liberalism (and other enemies). But, perhaps more to the point, Hayek argues that conservatism was hostile to innovation and new knowledge. It was shaky on the economic foundations of free market economics (which he himself was not all that fond of, as noted in The Road to Serfdom), and, to quote George H. Nash, “altogether too inclined to use the State for its own purposes rather than to limit this threat to liberty.”
Interesting, really.
Joseph McCarthy and Intellectual Dishonesty
July 17, 2013 § 2 Comments
I’m working on a new research project, for which I am reading George H. Nash’s classic The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945. Nash, a conservative himself, wrote this book 37 years ago, in 1976, but it has been updated regularly, most recently in 2006 (the edition I’m reading). It is, for the most part, a tour de force, but too often Nash (and the men he studies) are incapable of recognising the moral and real world implications of their arguments.
One glaring example of this is in the 1950s and the support of the American Right for McCarthyism. At least according to Nash, almost to a man, the right in the 1950s supported the bullying, unintelligent senator from Wisconsin. They supported his lies. They did so because of their belief in the evils of communism. But they seem to have been incapable of recognising the cost of McCarthyism. As one of my old professors, Steve Scheinberg (a 1960s radical) noted, many lives were destroyed by McCarthy and his accolytes in the early 1950s.
Nash even refers to one, Owen Lattimore. Lattimore was accused by McCarthy of being a Soviet stooge (along with many of the China Hands at the CIA, for that matter). Lattimore was was professor at Johns Hopkins University, in the 1930s, he was an adviser to both the American government and Chiang Kai-Shek’s nationalist movement in China. Chiang, of course, was engaged in a long and brutal civil war against Mao Zedong’s Communists throughout this period and was supported by, amongst others, the Americans. The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee engaged in an investigation of the Institute of Pacific Relations, as well as the American government’s China policies (remember, Mao and the Communists won the civil war in 1949, Chiang’s nationalists withdrew to Taiwan, but it was not until 1972 that the Communists were recognised by the US as the legitimate government of China).
Rumours of Lattimore being a Soviet spy had existed since 1948, but it in the early 1950s, McCarthy went after him, calling him the top Soviet spy in America, as well as accusing him of having delivered China into the hands of the Soviets. After investigation, it was found that Lattimore, though he had been an admirer of the Soviet Union and Stalinism in the 1930s was not, and had never been a Soviet spy, nor had he engaged in espionage. But that didn’t stop the Subcommittee’s report from concluding that Lattimore was “from the some time beginning in the 1930s, a conscious articulate instrument of the Soviet conspiracy.” This was untrue and a lie. Nonetheless, it ended Lattimore’s career as a consultant for the CIA and the American government. Ultimately, he left Johns Hopkins and moved to Leeds University in England, perhaps for obvious reasons.
But very little of this is in Nash’s book. The quote from the Subcommittee above is, and then he goes on to note how the right then used the report of the Subcommittee and quoted it “from one end of the country to the other” and of the impact of the report and its supporting documents. There is not a single mention of Lattimore’s innocence. At all. And all throughout Nash’s discussion of McCarthyism and its import for the American Right in the 1950s, he conveniently avoids mentioning all the lives that were destroyed by Communist witch hunts.
To me this is intellectual dishonesty. Nash completely avoids the implications of the arguments made by the conservative intellectuals of the 1950s he studies. He decontextualises these implications. One could read this chapter in Nash’s book and have absolutely no clue of the excesses and dangers of McCarthy, an ill-educated bully who ranted and raved about names he had listed on what were actually completely blank pieces of paper.
Insta-Memory: Dismantling the Boston Marathon Bombing Memorial
July 10, 2013 § 12 Comments
Over at NCPH’s History@Work, I have a piece up today on the dismantling of the Boston Marathon Bombing Memorial a couple of weeks ago by the City of Boston. In it, I explore the meaning of the memorial and what happens to commemorations and memories once a temporary memorial, like this one, is taken down. Today, incidentally, is the day that the surviving bomber/terrorist makes his first court appearance.
The Symbolism of Maps
July 1, 2013 § 4 Comments
London Tube map. 1908
As noted, I’m reading Peter Ackroyd’s epic London: The Biography. As might be expected of such a tome, it’s a treasure of information, some interesting, some not so much. But in reading it, I’m reminded of the London Underground map. Like the transportation network in any major city, London’s was originally a hodgepodge of private companies providing service, which were eventually centralised and then nationalised. The maps were created for what maps are always created for: to help people navigate their way around the system. The first map dates from 1908.
London Tube map, 2013
The basic template of this map remains in use today. As Ackroyd notes, “The original Underground map bears only approximate relation to the location of lines and stations, but it is so aesthetically pleasing that its lineaments have never been changed.” In other words, today’s Tube map is a representation of reality, it only gives a vague idea of the system. Countless Londoners and tourists both state at the map with great intensity trying to figure out where to go. And while the map does give a vague idea of where things are, it is highly impressionistic. But, boy, it sure does look great, doesn’t it?
Montréal métro system map
The thing I find most interesting about the London Tube map, though, is that it has become the template for subway/métro systems the world over. These maps are stylistic triumphs, but they are, quite frankly, useless as maps. Nonetheless, as urbanites, we are trained to be able to read these maps and navigate our way around the city. And let me also point out that cities are incredibly complex organisms. Navigating them has become second nature to us, but if we stop and thinking about it, what we can do on a daily basis without thinking too much is pretty impressive. At any rate, these transit maps. Consider, for example, the Montréal métro map. It’s a highly stylised representation of the métro and commuter rail lines in the city and its surrounding areas. Nothing other than the stations and ultimate destinations of the train lines are identified. In order to read the métro map, one requires a basic knowledge of the geography of the city.
Map of Montréal
Compare the métro map with that of the city as a whole. The métro map only covers a small part of the central portion of the Île-de-Montréal. Of course, that’s where the métro is. And note that the map of Montréal as a whole is missing perhaps the biggest geographical fact of the island, other than it is an island: Mont-Royal. That, of course, suggests that maps in general are just impressionistic and little more than symbols of what it is they are meant to represent.
This is a point that I like to make to my students about the great explosion of map-making in the West during the Age of Exploration, as well as the process of state formation in the Early Modern era: I ask them to think about what it is that they know makes them American (or Canadian, when I lived in Montréal), what makes them know that they in the upper right corner of the country know that all those people down in the lower left hand corner are all American. The map of the United States. As Benedict Anderson notes in his still brilliant Imagined Communities (seriously, this remains one of the greatest books I’ve ever read), part of the process of state-formation is achieved through the creation of a logoised map that is then emblazoned into the brains of the citizenry. When someone says the word “Canada” to me, many things flash through my head, but amongst all these images is the outline of the map of Canada.
In other words, maps aren’t really anything more than symbols of what it is they represent. We are trained in map reading from a very young age, so that even as children we can look at a map and instantly recognise what it is we’re supposed to be seeing.
The Urban Cacophony
June 28, 2013 § 31 Comments
I’m currently reading Peter Ackroyd’s epic London: The Biography. This is the third non-fiction book I’ve read in the past year on the history and culture of London (the others were Peter White’s London in the 20th Century, and Iain Sinclair’s luminous London Orbital). I’m not entirely sure why I’m reading so much of London, a city I don’t have any connection to; nor is it a city I feel any attraction to. But, here I am, no doubt attracted to these books because I find the city to be so fascinating (that’s the city in generic, not London particularly). And London is the most written-about city in the English language. Anyway.
One of Ackroyd’s chapters is about the sounds of London in the early modern era. I find acoustic history to be fascinating. Historians are increasingly interested in the sounds of the past (including my good friend, S.D. Jowett, whose blog is here), and this shouldn’t be surprising. Given the innovative uses we historians have made of our sources, it’s really no surprise that now we’re beginning to ponder the smells and sounds of the past. And cities, of course, are prime locations for such explorations. One of my favourite Montréal websites is the Montréal Sound Map, which documents the soundscapes of the city.
Ackroyd has done interesting work in excavating the audio history of London, including references to the combined sound of the city in the early modern era, like a cacophony or like the roaring of the ocean. These noises, of course, were and are entirely human created, the noise of people living in close quarters in a big city. Even the sounds of nature in cities are mediated through human intervention, such as the rushing streams and rivers of early modern London, or the mediated parks of the modern city, such as Mont-Royal in Montréal or Central Park in New York, both of which were created and landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted. It came as a shock to me when I learned that most of the flora and fauna on Mont-Royal were not, in fact, native species, but were brought in by Olmsted and planted there for aesthetic reasons.
When I think of the roar of the city, I tend to think of Manhattan. For my money, there is no urban space on this planet as loud as mid-town. The endless roar of traffic, the honking of horns, the sounds of people on the streets talking, sirens wailing, fights breaking out, the sound of planes flying overhead, people hawking things along the sidewalks. I had never really thought all that much about the noise of the city, it was just part of the background noise. But a few years ago, I realised that I like white noise machines. They were, I though, supposed to be evocative of the ocean (near which I grew up), but that’s not what the sounds evoked in me. They evoked the sounds of the city, the constant hum of human activity. The only other place I’ve been that challenges Manhattan for the capital of noise is my hometown. Montréal is downright noisy, as all cities are, but Montréal hurts my ears. Hence my love for Parc Mont-Royal. Once you get amongst the trees on the side of the mountain, the sounds of the city become a distant roar. The same is true for Central Park.
Where I sit right now, I hear the sounds of the city, over the sound of the loud music blasting out of my speakers. But I can hear people walking by my house, I can hear the traffic on the busy street at the end of my block, and sirens.
It’s not surprising that academics as a whole are starting to turn to the sounds that surround us, given how much of an impact our environment has upon us. This is just as true of rural areas (in which case, the silence can tend to frighten city folk). In the late 19th century, the anti-modernists took hold of a part of North American culture. They were turned off by the city, by the noise, by the hustle & bustle, by the fast pace of life. People began to develop neurasthenia, wherein the patient began to feel frazzled, burned out, and depressed due to a frazzling of the nerves. It was particularly common in American cities, and for awhile was also known as “Americanitis.” So the anti-modernists, who preached a basic ‘back to the land’ message. Canada’s most famous artistic sons, the Group of Seven, were predicated on this kind of anti-modernism, they championed the mid-Canadian north as a tonic against the aggravation of living in the city.
But what I find most interesting about the kind of acoustic history that Ackroyd introduces us to is the way in which he is so successful at recreating the past, I can almost put myself in the streets of London in the 17th century. Perhaps this is not surprising. I read something once that said that sounds, more than sights, triggered our other senses, as well as our imagination and memory (think of this next time you hear a song that has meaning for you, you will be transported back to that meaning). But, for historians, acoustic histories (as well as histories of smells, the other incredibly evocative sense) really do work at making history come alive, so to speak. Plus, it’s also just kind of cool to imagine what a city sounded like 200 years ago.
Boston Strong?
June 25, 2013 § 1 Comment
The Boston Bruins lost the Stanley Cup last night in glorious fashion. Up 2-1 with 89 seconds to go in Game 6, they were that close to a Game 7 back in Chicago tomorrow night. Then disaster (or, from my perspective, glory) struck, and the Black Hawks scored twice in 17.7 seconds to win the game 3-2 and capture the Cup in 6 games. All throughout the playoffs, the Bruins and their fans have rallied behind the slogan “Boston Strong!” Before every home game, the Bruins brought out victims of the 15 April Boston Marathon Bombings as a sign of solidarity with the city, with the city’s recovery and, of course, to rally the Garden faithful.
On the whole, Boston has rallied behind the “Boston Strong” cry. Every time I step out the front door, I see it on t-shirts, ball caps, bumper stickers. It’s in the windows of businesses. And the Boston sports teams, most notably the Bruins, but also the Celtics and Red Sox (the Patriots aren’t playing now, of course, and no one cares about the Revolution) have harnessed this as well. The Celtics, during their brief playoff appearance, were selling t-shirts that declared “Boston Stands As One.” A woman behind the counter at the pro shop in the Garden swore the Celtics were donating to the One Boston Fund with proceeds from the shirts. The Bruins did the same thing. And all throughout the Bruins’ run to the Cup final, “Boston Strong!” meant cheering for the Bruins as much as a declaration of strength in the face of terrorism. This, of course, made it kind of difficult for me, as anyone who knows me knows that the only thing on God’s Green Earth I hate is the fucking Boston Bruins (sorry, Auntie (my great Aunt got mad at me for using foul language in an earlier blog post)).
And then in the NHL playoffs, all holy hell broke lose. Some guy in Toronto, during the first round series, held up a sign that said “Toronto Stronger.” People in Boston were furious, and within minutes #TorontoStronger was the top trend on Twitter here. People not in Boston were furious, people in Toronto were furious.
It got worse in the Finals, a t-shirt company in Chicago began selling “Chicago Stronger” shirts. The response was predictable and it makes you wonder just what the guys at Cubby Tees (the company behind the t-shirts) were thinking? The t-shirts were quickly pulled from sale in response to the firestorm of protest, much of it, to be fair, from Boston. 
Then the guys at Cubby Tees responded, offering some kind of apology that wasn’t really an apology, just a self-serving attempt to make themselves as the victims of the entire affair. But they kind of had a point, they argued that this is sports, and in sports, there are rivalries. And when there are rivalries, there is a competition of wit, idiocy (ok, I said that, they didn’t) and so on.
And yet, the kind of furor that erupted after the sign in Toronto and the t-shirt in Chicago was predictable. The guy in Toronto should’ve seen it coming, so, too, should have Cubby Tees. Both were in incredibly bad taste. The Boston Globe published an editorial comment a week ago decrying the co-opting of the “Boston Strong” slogan by sports fans (amongst others), claiming that it diminished from the slogan’s original point, which was “the victims of the bombing, now rebuilding their lives; the law enforcement efforts during the manhunt; the decision, by athletes and organizers, to run the Marathon in 2014.”
It’s hard to argue with that logic, but it’s also bad logic. The Boston Strong rallying cry has obviously spread to sports, and it’ll spread to music and festivals all summer long. And when the Dropkick Murphys play, whether in Boston or anywhere else, there’ll be people in the crowd chanting the slogan or they’ll have it on posters. Why? Because the Bruins and the Dropkicks are ambassadors of Boston. Both the punk band and the hockey team market a brand that makes Boston a tough, intimidating place (in reality, it’s nothing of the sort), and that’s an image that Bostonians like, and are proud to project around North America and beyond. The Bruins represent the city and the fans of the Bruins put their hopes, their energy, their money into supporting the team in cheering them on to victory. When the Bruins lost last night, Claude Julien, the coach, told reporters that he was disappointed in part because it would’ve been nice to bring the Cup back to Boston to help in the healing from the bombings.
It was always going to be the case that “Boston Strong” would become a rallying cry for Bruins’ fans. They’re Bostonians, and the Bruins are their team, their representatives. The Globe missed the point of professional sports; sports are meant as a distraction, as a means of turning our attention from reality. It’s worth noting that back in September 2001, the NFL season was meant to start the weekend after 9/11. Paul Tagliabue, the commissioner of the NFL at the time, immediately cancelled the games that weekend out of respect. It was the obviously correct choice to make. But then-president George W. Bush inveighed upon Tagliabue to reinstate the games, Americans needed the distraction.
Sports are more about identity as much as anything else for spectators and fans. And thus, it should be no surprise to anyone, lest of all the Globe that “Boston Strong” became a rallying cry for the Bruins, just as it was for the Celtics, as it is for the Red Sox, and will be for the Patriots when their season starts up in the fall.
Canadian History: A Live Grenade
June 10, 2013 § 2 Comments
All History is both political and public in nature. I tend to describe myself as a public historian. As such, I am interested in how history is viewed by the general public and I’m interested in the intersection of public memory and history. But that should be obvious to anyone reading this blog or what I’ve written on the NCPH’s history@work blog. But, sometimes I tend to forget about the inherent politicisation of any act of history or memory.
To wit, I got drawn into an argument on Twitter yesterday, my foils were both Canadian Army soldiers. One retired, one active. One I have never come across before, the other is a guy I follow and who follows me. The discussion was about Stephen Harper’s new paint job on his plane, one that makes it look like a Conservative Party of Canada Airbus, rather than an RCAF plane. We argued about the colours of the Royal Canadian Air Force, and whether red, white, or blue belong there (we all agree they do), and in what proportion.
The outcome of the argument is irrelevant. What is interesting was the very fact that we were having it in the first place. In Anglo Canada, history has long been a dead subject, it wasn’t usually the topic of public discussion or debate, and when it was, it was something we could all generally agree on, like hockey. Even when Jack Granatstein published his deliberately provocative (and generally quite stupidly offensive) Who Killed Canadian History? in the mid-90s, Canadians generally yawned and looked the other way.
But, in the past few years, largely I would argue as a result of Stephen Harper’s Prime Ministership, Canadian history has become a live grenade. Anglo Canadians argue about the role of the monarchy in our history, we argue about the role of the military in our history, and so on. Canadians are having real arguments about their history for the first time in my life. And, as much as I despise Stephen Harper and his government, I suppose we have him and they to thank for this.
Matthew Barlow 